“Ah. Maybe a young girl?” said Miramar with a sudden show of insight. He extended his hand as if admiring the new light pattern upon his sleeve. “A very young girl, perhaps?”
I nodded, looking directly at Miramar and so breaking the chain of pretense that bound us. “Yes,” I said. “The ones who accompanied you this evening: they are available?”
“They are all abed,” Miramar said thoughtfully. “No, wait—Arethusa has been engaged by two Senators for dousing—”
“Is she the fair one?”
“No—that would be Fancy.” Miramar’s glance suddenly grew sharper. “Fancy … Did you know she was the special intimate of Raphael Miramar?”
“I couldn’t help but hear her interrupt my performance,” I said. “But so what? You said yourself he was the loveliest of all of you. If I so resemble Raphael Miramar, then certainly I may request an intrigant deserving of my absent brother.”
I grinned; but it seemed that I had been too bold. For a long moment Miramar regarded me shrewdly.
“You are not what you seem,” he said at last. A flash of anger in his dark eyes. “Do you know who you travel with, Saint-Alaban?”
Justice stood up straight, sleep’s last softness gone from him now. “I do.”
“Who is he?” Miramar’s eyes narrowed. That dim fragrant hallway seemed suddenly to have shrunk into another place, a closed inquisitory chamber like that where I had spent so many hours in my last days at HEL . I took a step nearer to Justice.
“Who is he, Saint-Alaban?” repeated Miramar. “A rebel? An Ascendant delator?”
“He is not a spy,” said Justice. “I told you, he is what you see: my friend, a Librarian now traveling with Toby Rhymer’s troupe. Miss Scarlet can vouch for him.”
From the belled cuff of his robe Miramar withdrew a sheaf of anaphylactic lozenges. He peeled one from the rest and applied it to his temple without offering one to either of us. “I only want to know who I am doing business with,” he said. “Fancy Miramar is a particular favorite of Constance Beech the Botanist.”
And worth her weight in opium because of that, I thought. I drummed my fingers against my lip, facetiously imitating the Paphian’s beck, and waited for Justice to reply. His blue eyes sparked angrily for an instant. He let his breath out slowly, then laughed.
“You drive a hard bargain, Miramar! All this for one little mopsy? A pretty girl, but really! Come on, Aidan—” He made as though to pull me after him into our chamber.
Miramar sniffed, then smiled. A flush crept from the edges of his scalp. The lozenge was beginning to have its effect.
“Ah, well, forgive me! Doctor Foster will no doubt examine me and suggest I join the elders after this Winterlong: I am growing old and suspicious.
“But we hear frightening tales these days. Some weeks ago a drunken janissary told me of an Ascendant coming to govern the City. Since then we’ve heard that a band of Ascendants was attacked near the river; that another group was captured by the Curators and killed. They were searching for someone, prisoners escaped from the Citadel. And there is talk of lazars gathering in the Cathedral under a leader. They have grown bold these last few weeks. A group attacked Mustapha Illyria’s birthday party and bore off three boys. And last week we entertained Zoologists who told me of aardmen trying to lure children from the Zoo, and betulamia devouring a Botanist near the Gardens.”
“I’ve heard none of this,” said Justice. “I told you, I have been gone … but surely this doesn’t bear on our plans for the evening?”
Miramar sighed. “No, no. It’s foolish to worry about all this; leave that to the Curators. Good sense is bad business, after all! It’s just I’ve had no word of Raphael for so long, and I worry.” He made the Paphian’s beck and bowed, turned a smiling face to us once more.
“So your bashful friend will engage Fancy Miramar for the rest of the evening?”
There followed several minutes of bargaining in low voices. The two Paphians spoke as much with their hands as their tongues as I waited. After another minute or two they kissed. It was done.
“She will be here?” I asked as Justice stepped beside me. A few feet away Miramar stood smiling. The lumens on his robe blinked faster and faster as they responded to the lozenge’s quickening of his blood.
“Well, yes. Wendy, he—” Justice stared at my feet. “He won’t take payment.”
“Well, good. We have nothing to trade.” I tugged at the door handle.
“No—I mean, he’ll only take one payment. He wants a kiss; he wants you to kiss him.”
I began to argue but he cut me short.
“Because you resemble Raphael—well, don’t do it then, Wendy.” I sniffed as he put his hand anxiously on my shoulder: jealous! “We can go to bed, it’s late—”
“I want to see the girl.”
I turned to Miramar. “Well, Miramar, you demand small payment for the special intimate of Raphael Miramar and Constance Beech.” I tilted my face to his.
He kissed me so violently that I recoiled, twisting so that his hands would not feel my breasts. The lozenge’s acrid taste lingered on my tongue. I shut my eyes and tried not to respond to his desire, its memory of a face so much like mine that I felt queasy, as though I tasted my own blood. I clutched at Miramar’s sleeve. His laughter rang out, flecking the air with that bitter smell.
“He is an innocent!” he said, eyes flashing delightedly. “How gratifying to see that I can make you dizzy with a kiss, Sieur Aidan! No, he is not Raphael Miramar,” he said to Justice. “Kisses like a Curator, doesn’t he?”
Justice smiled wryly. I untangled myself from Miramar’s embrace and stepped away, noting that Miramar’s lumens now glowed a brilliant violet, pulsing like a warning beacon.
“I will wake Fancy,” he said as he turned on his heel.
Once inside our chamber I set to warming the room’s single diatom lantern with my hands. Its cool light flared to a brighter blue to show us our sleeping chamber: a long narrow room overhung with more tapestries. Justice stood by the door staring at me, waiting for an explanation. I met his gaze, felt a surge of desire stirred by his anger. I turned away from him.
“I should have taken my own chamber,” I said, staring at the bed that stood at the room’s center: wide and sumptuously pillowed, canopied with drapes of viridian velvet. I felt uneasy, as though on the edge of a seizure, and empty, the way I had felt after the janissaries siphoned me.
“This is dangerous, Wendy,” Justice said, drawing closer. “This girclass="underline" she’ll know you’re not Raphael Miramar.”
“I don’t want her to believe that I’m Raphael Miramar,” I said. “I want to tap her.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not? I won’t hurt her: just a moment, just long enough to learn more about him—”
“You already heard what Miramar said. There was a girl, they sold her to the Ascendants—”
“ I was that girl!” Suddenly I felt more frightened than I had since I first saw the Boy; but also enraged, as though everything since that moment had been a betrayal. I grabbed him in a fury. “Sold like a fucking animal by a whore! Sold to the Ascendants so that I could be patterned with some monster, so that I could be melted down for this!”
I pointed at my head, screaming as my entire body shook. I was on the verge of a seizure. When Justice tried to restrain me I struck him, sending him reeling.
“Where is that boy?” I shouted. “Raphael Miramar—what kind of a brain does he have, the suzein’s favorite, why wasn’t he sold?”